Top 10 Data Center Security Stories of 2024Top 10 Data Center Security Stories of 2024

Most of the cybersecurity incidents that dominate headlines today involve software-based breaches – meaning the bad guys targeted applications hosted in data centers, not the data centers themselves. In that sense, there may not seem to be a whole lot to say about data center security apart from the importance of securing workloads that reside inside data centers.

As Data Center Knowledge's top security stories of 2024 show, however, this is hardly the case. Alongside traditional cybersecurity news, a variety of other security-related considerations – ranging from putting out literal fires inside data centers, to handling the unique security challenges of edge data centers – also defined how we talked about data center security this year.

To illustrate the point, here's a look at our top data center security stories from 2024.

1. 5 Ways Data Centers Can Help Prevent Data Breaches

In August, we published an overview of data center security and breach prevention. It included recommended measures that are probably obvious, like managing physical access to data center facilities. But it also discussed some practices that are easier to overlook – such as vetting whom you hire to work in your data centers and optimizing network infrastructure (in order to speed response and recovery in the event of a cybersecurity incident).

2. Multi-Tenant and Cross-Tenant Threats in Google Cloud and Beyond

While the network has an important role to play in improving data center security, it also creates some novel risks – such as multi-tenant and cross-tenant security risks. These arise when employees create personal accounts on the same cloud services or platforms that their companies use. Because the services and platforms are accessible via the corporate network, there is often no way at the network level to prevent employees from intentionally or accidentally using the network to upload sensitive data into their private accounts, which may not be properly monitored or secured.

This is a complex challenge without simple solutions, but it highlights how the growing complexity of cloud and data center networks – and the third-party services they integrate with – is complicating data center security.

3. A Guide to the Top Data Center Security Certifications

No certification can guarantee that employees will follow security best practices or mitigate risks. But certifications can help – which is why we detailed popular security certifications for data center personnel. As we explained, there is no certification that focuses on data center security specifically, but many certifications are available that cover key skills for enhancing data center security.

4. Managing Risk: Is Your Data Center Insurance up to the Test?

Purchasing cyber insurance is another way to help mitigate data center security risks, among other challenges, as Data Center Knowledge contributors explained in an October 2024 article. Just be careful, however, to ensure that the insurance you obtain provides adequate coverage against cybersecurity incidents. Policy details and coverage amounts can vary widely, and you don't want to discover the hard way that your policy doesn't pay out enough to allow your business to recover successfully from a cyber incident, or that the type of incident you experienced is not covered.

5. The Biggest Threats to Data Center Uptime – and How to Overcome Them

Better than receiving a payout following a security breach or other disruption in your data center is not having an incident occur at all. This is why identifying and mitigating common data center uptime threats – which include issues such as IT equipment and networking failures, according to Uptime Institute research released this year – is a critical best practice.

Interestingly, the Uptime Institute reported that information security breaches account for just 1 percent of all data center downtime incidents, suggesting that data center operators seeking to maximize uptime should prioritize other types of risks. But improving cybersecurity certainly won't hurt.

6. Application SLAs in the Cloud: A Big Swindle?

In a bid to improve uptime, data center operators may choose to outsource some services to third-party providers that promise Service Level Agreements (SLAs) of 99 percent or better. Theoretically, this means that services will be available at least 99 percent of the time. But in practice, the way that service providers calculate SLAs can make uptime guarantees misleading – or even cause them to feel like a "swindle," as our contributor put it.

The takeaway here is not that SLAs have no meaning – they do – but that it's important to read the fine print about how an SLA is calculated, as well as how well a provider has actually upheld SLA commitments in the past, before assuming that you'll necessarily enjoy the advertised uptime.

7. Data Center Disaster Recovery: Essential Measures for Business Continuity

Regardless of the SLAs that your service providers promise, an important step toward optimizing data center uptime is ensuring you have a plan in place to recover efficiently when disaster strikes – whether it's a cybersecurity incident or another type of disruption, such as IT equipment failure or a fire.

Our guide to data center disaster recovery, published in July, details the various preparations that data center operators should undertake to ensure they are ready for the worst – even as they hope for the best.

8. How to Prevent Data Center Fires: Lessons from the Biggest Incidents

To dive deeper into managing a specific type of data center security and uptime threat, we also published guidance this year on preventing data center fires. The report, which reflects lessons gleaned from actual fires that took place at data center facilities owned by companies like Google and AT&T in recent years, offers tips on building resilience against fires, as well as how to meet regulations related to fire safety in data centers.

9. Incident Response: More Lessons Learned from a Data Center Fire

In October, Data Center Knowledge covered a presentation by James Monek, director of technology infrastructure and operations at Lehigh University, about how his team responded to a data center fire. The major takeaway is that, thanks to having an effective fire suppression system in place as well as careful disaster recovery plans, the organization was able to minimize the physical damage caused by the fire and restore operations very quickly. But Monek also mentioned some items that he wished his team had handled better, such as having more clearly defined responsibilities for who was in charge of managing which aspects of the response process.

10. Securing Edge Data Centers: Challenges and Solutions

The bulk of data center security coverage in 2024 centered on traditional data centers – meaning large facilities with strong physical security controls and secure ambient surroundings. But what happens when you have an edge data center, which may not have on-site staff, may be located in a less secure area and may lack conventional monitoring and security control systems? In that case, you need to undertake extra preparations to mitigate security risks, such as avoiding labeling your edge data center as such (to reduce the risk of malicious actors targeting it) and moving the facility periodically, if feasible.